Call Me Zhenya

Chapter One

Prison didn't agree with Anna Slaten. She didn't belong here. She never had. They'd just put her here. To protect her, they said. Six months, they said, maximum. We'll be sure you don't stay any longer than necessary.

That had been two years ago. Okay, twenty-three months and seventeen days, but who was counting? She was, and it was getting more and more difficult to distinguish one day from the other. Even with her artificially enhanced brain, she had to concentrate to keep track.

Today was Wednesday, April third, and it was cold. It was nearly always cold. For a few days in July and August it tended toward warmer, but in the dead of winter she always wondered if she was going to live until spring.

Spring was here, more or less, and she was alive. More or less. And a voice over the intercom was calling her cellblock to outdoor recreation.

She pulled her shoes on. They were ugly, soft-soled slip-ons to go with the ugly but practical plain jeans and blue chambray shirts all the prisoners wore. It was the same outfit for everyone, every day. At least they didn't have to wear orange prison jumpers except on laundry day. So it could have been worse. And she'd gotten a new set of clothes for her first incarceration anniversary. Her second anniversary was coming up; maybe she'd get a nice dress.

Thus properly attired, she headed out with her fellow inmates. They all proceeded toward the doors in an orderly fashion, following the instructions of the guards. They looked like sheep. Blue sheep on two legs. The thought usually made Anna smile a little. Today it didn't.

They filed out into the exercise yard. Anna wondered about the other women. Every day, seeing the faces, the various expressions of resentment and complacency, she wondered why they all were here. Had they truly committed some unthinkable crime against humanity? Were they political prisoners, serial killers, plotters of assassinations? Or were they like her, incarcerated to put her under the radar for a while, until things cooled down, people stopped trying to kill her, and they could come fetch her and put her back to work? Although at this point, she was beginning to wonder if her employers had forgotten about her.

Today there were two new faces. They didn't appear often, but when they did, Anna paid attention. The new guests at the prison party were both big women, tall and muscular. They looked less tame than the others in the yard—they always did for the first few days, until they found their places. Or, more accurately, had their places shown to them none too subtly by the other inmates. Anna participated in the orientation procedures far less frequently these days. The others knew too well what she could do and how she did it. They'd decided—quite rightly—it was best not to fuck with her.

Anna scanned the new faces impersonally, careful to avoid an inadvertent challenge. She wanted to remember what they looked like. The outlines and details sank through the layers of her memory to that place where she would never forget them, into the locked compartments she could access at will and in need. She also let the images flow into her normal long-term memory. The process occurred instinctively; her brain knew how to do it on its own. God knew it should—she'd been through enough training. Superficial things moved into normal memory, but anything she might need later went into what she and the people who'd reprogrammed her brain called the Vault. So this morning's breakfast menu? No special treatment. Make a note in ordinary layers of gray matter. But the faces of women who quite likely might attempt to kill her in the next few days? That information she hung on to.

With the women's faces properly catalogued, Anna turned her attention back to her surroundings. She enjoyed outdoor recreation as much as anyone could enjoy anything in prison. The fresh air made her feel alive, invigorated. Good, clean oxygen penetrating to every cell. She wasn't sure where this facility was located, though she'd made several educated guesses, but it was far enough away from civilization that the air was truly pure.